The Reaper
by Fantazima
Summary: It's been two years since the fall of the Triskellion, a year and a half since Steve pulled Bucky out of his hole and recruited him to dismantle the surviving Hydra body after the removal of several significant heads. Bucky is getting his life together. There are even whispers of Avenger level recruitment. Then a girl comes barreling into his life and turns everything upside down.
1. Chapter 1

_Soooo, don't try to understand the chronological events of the MCU storyline in my story. LOL! I'm basically picking and choosing events and event order to suit my storyline, so there will be things that haven't happened (like the rift between the Avengers from Civil War) and things that have still happened but may be in a different order than shown by Marvel. Hopefully it doesn't mess you guys up too much. I've got some of this story roughly laid out, but I'm doing this as a fun writing project on the side so I'm not sure of when I will update. I'll probably work harder to regularly update if this story actually gets a good response. Well, enjoy!_

 _I own nothing but my OC's. :)_

* * *

"Tell me again why we are doing this and not the super soldiers?" Daisy asked, glancing down the hall of the dank apartment building. A fluorescent light at the end of the hall flickered imputently. The stale musk of cigarette smoke coated the decaying ecosystem of the apartment complex.

May didn't look up at her as she slid her lock pick from of the door handle with a satisfying click. "Because it might be nothing. They are only here because they were in the area when we got the tip."

The worn knob turned easily now, the door hinges squealing a protest as they swung the door open. The apartment was empty, they had made sure of that, but both agents still drew their sidearms anyways. Nodding once to Daisy, May stepped inside. Daisy followed, locking the door behind them, just as it had been when they had arrived.

Even with only the minimal presence of the two women, the studio apartment still felt crowded. The kitchen bled into the living room which bled into the murphy bed that leaned slightly away from the wall as though age had stolen its ability to stand upright. A single chair and small round table stood sentinel in the center of the kitchen/living room. Beneath the its feet the linoleum was warped and yellowed. Cracks raced through the drywall like a spider's web.

One door branched off from the single room apartment into what must be a bathroom. The opposite wall was the only impressive feature of the homestead. The entire wall consisted of thick glass windows, whose interior surface had been meticulously kept clean of dirt and smudges. It looked out over the industrial part that surrounded the building.

Daisy stepped up the glass, her hands in her pockets and looked down. The pebbled roof of the adjacent warehouse greeted her. "If I don't get to set eyes on Captain America by the end of this," Daisy said, shifting the sling of the rifle across her back, "then I am counting this reconnaissance as a total loss."

May smirked at her from where she stood, inspected the lone bowl and spoon in the sink. "This chick takes minimalist to a whole new level."

She opened a cabinet to find a single box of cereal. The cheap kind that consisted almost entirely of sugar. Milk alongside a small crowd of condiments were the solitary inhabitants of the fridge shelves. A small carton of eggs in the door. Cheese.

Daisy nudged open the bathroom door, gun raised, finger ready at the trigger. It was empty of course, but they had been tipped off on a possible Inhuman occupant, so she wasn't going to take any chances until they knew exactly what she was capable of.

A single tooth brush lay beside the sink, its only companion a mangled tube of toothpaste.

"Now this is interesting," Daisy heard May say from the other room.

Daisy stepped back out into the kitchen/living room/bedroom to find May kneeling beside what looked to be a cardboard box bedside table. The small alarm clock had been set on the floor, and May was sifting through the box's contents. Daisy hovered of May's shoulder. She held several glossy photographs in her hands.

"Those are Hydra agents. Look at the crest on their jackets," Daisy said, pointed down at a man in the corner of the photo at the top of the stack.

"We are in position," A voice crackled through the radio in May's inside jacket pocket.

May reached inside her coat and pulled the radio free, pressing in the comm button. "Alright Captain. We are inside. All clear." May slid away the photo at the top pile with the pad of her thumb, letting it fall back into the box. This photo was not as new as others. Its corners were creased, the edges worn with handling. Daisy let out a breath. This face she recognized. Unruly dark hair. Sharp cheekbones. The frost of a cryogenics tank. Someone she had never met but would recognize in an instant. They all knew of him. May continued, "I think there are some things here that you might find interesting."

Daisy took the photograph, light glimmering on its glossy surface. This man in the photograph was a ghost of the man he was today. In this photo, even in the cold induced slumber, his skin was sallow. She could see dark circles under his eyes. Lines of strain and tension frozen in his face. She turned the photo over. Four words were written in a neat script. Where is he now?

"The tip claimed her to be enhanced. I first thought Inhuman," May said, flipping another photo of a Hydra agent off the top of the stack. "But now I'm starting to think another Hydra experiment. Some sort of super soldier, maybe?"

Daisy sighed, dropping the photo she held back in the box. "They really need to give that a rest. It's getting old."

"These look like surveillance photos to me," May said, sifting through a few more. There were photos of men talking. Guards at their posts. Two men at a cafe.

"There is the camera," Daisy said, pointing to an elderly Nikon sitting on top of a dark duffle bag in the corner of the room.

Daisy took a step toward it when she heard a sound that made the hair raise on the back of her neck. The click of the door lock releasing. They hadn't heard anyone come down the hall. They had been assured by the creaks of the old oak floors that any approach to the apartment would be identifiable. But this intruder had been silent. She turned, hand going to her sidearm, just as the door was pushed open.

For a long moment, Daisy and the girl in the doorway just stared at each other. The other girl was tall, powerfully built. The dark jacket she wore strained across the shoulders and through her biceps. Her legs were long, the musculature of her thighs and calves made visible by the tight fit of her jeans. She was barely any older than Daisy, if any. She held an obese paper grocery bag to her chest, the florets of a broccoli spear peeking out the top.

She blinked dark eyes, and then the spell broke. She dropped the grocery bag, a jar inside it shattering as it hit the floor. Daisy raised her hands, but in two great steps, the girl was vaulting over the counter top to her left and into the kitchen area.

May came to stand behind Daisy, gun freed of its holster, as they quietly approached. They could hear the girl rummaging through the a cabinet, a clang of metal. Daisy's eyes flicked to meet May's. The girl rose from behind the safety of the counter barrier. She now wore a leather shoulder harness, similar to gun holsters or the harness that Daisy had seen Captain America wearing. Curved tips of wicked looking blades peeked up over her shoulders. She held a pistol in her right hand, the muzzle tipped down, finger running the length of its barrel. Not on the trigger, but ready if need be.

May jerked her gun up at the sight of the weapon. Daisy raised her hands, muscles tense. "Careful Daisy," May warned. "This is an old building."

"Look," Daisy said, taking a step closer to the girl. "We just wanna talk."

The girl stood statue still, feet braced apart, dark eyes sharp and cool. "That's what they all say, right before they cut you open."

In a motion almost too fast to track, the girl raised the gun and fired. Both Daisy and May dropped. Daisy's knee smacked the hardwood, pain lancing up her leg. The sound was bigger than the room, the cacophony of it an assault on her ear drums. Everything rang with the sound of it. Glass rained like water across the floor as a window behind them shattered. The girl's feet were moving, carrying her toward the broken window. Daisy pushed up, glass biting her palms, and launched herself at the girl.

"What's happening?" called the static voice of the Captain through May's radio. "Was that a gunshot?"

They went down hard, Daisy's elbow on fire as it collided with the floor. She wrapped her arm around the girl's throat, locking herself in. With a snarl, the girl hauled herself to her feet, staggering a step under Daisy's off center weight, before slamming her back against the wall. Dust puffed around them as the ancient drywall fractured on impact. Pain cracked like lightening up Daisy's back as her rifle dug into her spine.

The girl reached up and snatched Daisy's wrist, digging her fingers into the tendons there. Daisy cried out, her fingers springing open without order. The girl grasped Daisy by the collar of her uniform and shucked her off like she was not more than an old sweater, sending her tumbling across the room and into one of the floor to ceiling windows. Her head struck the glass, and she could hear the surface fracture under the force of her body. Daisy wheezed, trying to pull air into her lungs.

When she looked up, stars bursting in the corners of her vision, May had engaged the girl. They were fighting. May's breathes were coming in ragged gasps as she fought hard to keep up with the girl's speed.

Until this moment, Daisy had thought of May as one of the toughest, most skilled fighters she had ever encountered. She had seen the woman take down men twice her size, fly several types of aircraft and wield an entire arsenal of weaponry with ease. But this girl...she fought with a cool, unsettlingly efficient style. There was no added flair, no superfluous acrobatics. She was all deadly speed and wicked power.

It took a matter of seconds for the girl to disarm May. Daisy was just getting her hands underneath her when the girl cracked the butt of the pistol hard across May's face. Bone crunched and May staggered, gasping. Blood rushed from her nose.

In that moment of utter chaos, Daisy tried to push to her feet but stumbled. The girl took two great strides across the small room and leapt through the fractured glass window behind Daisy. Light flashed across the blades at her back and then she was gone.

Daisy let out a pained breath into the silence of the room. She pressed a hand to her rib cage and winced. Several were bruised, if not broken. Daisy took a few unsteady steps toward where May leaned against the counter, spitting blood onto the apartment floor.

"Dude, that's never coming out the carpet," Daisy joked weakly as she reached inside May's coat and retrieved the radio.

"Yeah, well," May said, using the heel of her palm to push blood coated hair back from her face, "I think it's safe to say she's not getting her deposit back."

The radio's hard shell was badly cracked and the display flickered frantically, but when she pressed down on the soft rubber of the comm button it sprang willingly to life. "You guys are up," Daisy wheezed. "You've got incoming."

* * *

Steve looked up to the sound of shattered glass. A figure was falling three stories down to the rooftop of the manufacturing plant he stood on, her arms windmilling in an attempt to keep herself from over rotating. The SHIELD agent Daisy Johnson was still speaking over the radio, but her couldn't make out what she was saying. He watched as the girl landed in a spray of pebbles, rolling through the brunt of the impact until she was on her feet, dashing across the rooftop.

Steve broke into a sprint, surprised by how hard he had to push to catch her. He took her in the moments before their collision. Her dark hair streamed behind her like a dark banner. She was impressively built, powerful muscles propelling her across the rooftop. Long curved blades were sheathed in a harness at her back. Steve's boots sunk deep in the rock of the flat roof top with every step. All he could hear was the breathrushing from his lips and the roar of the wind past his ears. With one final push, he launched himself at her.

They hit the ground in a spray of pea gravel. Between the seconds of his body colliding with hers and hitting the ground, she managed to push herself away from him, just enough to allow herself to roll to her feet. Steve didn't give her a moment to gather herself. He pressed every ounce of speed and strength into his first blow, ready to finish this before it started. But she deflected it.

He let out a breath of surprise, but regrouped instantly, stepping in again and again, blow after blow. One after the other, she deflected them, her face carefully blank as she met each advance. He went for the inside of her knee, and she spun away. The face, and she dipped she shoulder back, his fist catching only air and the feather light kiss of the strands of hair that had pulled loose from her pony tail.

Any strike that made contact glanced off. One to the shoulder, one to the line of her jaw, but neither were allowed to showcase the enumerable strength thrust into each advance. Then, in a movement even he found surprisingly quick, she twisted herself inside the reach of his arms and drove her elbow up hard into his face.

Steve saw stars. Tears pricked at his eyes. He staggered back and tripped over his heel. Black blurred past as he fell, a flash of red hair. Natasha landed a solid heel to the girl's chest, who had clearly not expected the agent's sudden appearance, knocking her back a few steps. There was a flash of metal at the girl's shoulder.

Natasha snapped out a baton, the weapon telescoping to its full length with a click. It snapped savagely with the threat of its electric current. Natasha swung. The baton whistling through the air. The girl dodged one swing, then another and another with the same cool intensity she had held in her previous altercation.

The girl roared when the baton finally made contact. Natasha leaned in harder, trying to keep the girl slowed. The girl clamped a hand on Natasha's wrist and twisted hard. Natasha cried out. Steve was already to his feet but it was too late. The girl seized the baton, ripped it from her hands and brought it down on Natasha's temple. The Black Widow crumpled, the girl letting her fall back as she threw the baton to the side.

Steve hesitated for a split second, unsure if he should go to Natasha or go after the girl. The girl took a few steps back from Natasha, clearly shaken by the electrical charges that had passed through her system. Suddenly, her back arched and she cried out. She twisted, reaching for the black blade that was buried hilt deep in the meat of her shoulder. Russian. Military issue.

Bucky.

The girl ripped the blade free with a snarl and flung it far from reach. Steve went for Natasha. She gave no response as he reached her. He felt for a pulse. Slow but strong. She was just unconscious. The girl reached up and pressed her fingers into the wound, hissing. They came away red.

Then, silent as a ghost, Bucky was on her. She twisted, narrowly missing the arch of Bucky's blade. Again and again he swiped, the knife catching the front of her coat, her sleeve, a few strands of hair, but never making contact with flesh. Watching the two figures fight was like watching a meticulously choreographed dance, quick, smooth, unfaltered. This time though, her cool mask had crumbled, giving way to tight features and bared teeth. She was fight through the pain in her shoulder.

Sunlight glinted off Bucky's metal hand as he drove his blade toward her chest. She caught his wrist, her feet sliding back several inches in the loose pebbles. Her body trembled with the effort of holding him back, but her strength held. Steve could see Bucky's eyes widen in surprise, saw him falter and make himself vulnerable. Steve reached over his shoulder, his hand settling on the cool edge of his shield. Then he flung it.

The girl caught a glimpse of the disk seconds before it made contact. She twisted at the last second. Instead of hitting its mark, it struck her hard in the injured shoulder. She cried out as the shield clattered to the ground. Steve was already moving, running for it, but she was closer. She dove for it, rolled to her feet with significantly less grace then he had yet to see her do anything else, and slid her forearm in the straps of the shield.

For a breath, everything stilled. The girl breathed in ragged gasps, her hand clutching her shoulder, blood dripping through her fingers. Behind him, Bucky slipped closer, smooth and silent, a predator closing in on its prey. She stepped to the side slightly, keeping the shield between her and Bucky.

Steve's earpiece crackled. Agent May's voice came through the waves, thick and rasping. "Daisy is in position. She has a clean shot. Should she take it, Captain?"

Steve pressed the earpiece into his ear, glancing at the girl as she slowly backed towards the edge of the rooftop, her eyes still on Bucky. If they let her reach the edge, she would jump and they would have no chance of catching her.

Steve let out a breath. "Take the shot."

It rang like a crack of lightning through the industrial park. The shot struck the girl in the shoulder. The force of it wrenched her body back, throwing her down into the pebbles like she was no more than a ragdoll and then she was still.

Steve took a few steps closer. He could see the shallow rise and fall of the girl's chest. What had they called them? Icers? A non lethal round.

Steve watched as Bucky moved to stand over the girl, slipping his knife back into its sheath at his hip. He was nothing more than a dark shadow dressed all in black, dark hair a wild mess from his spar. Absently, he rubbed the palm of his metal hand, the hand the girl had stopped.

The wind fought to snatch the quiet words from Bucky's mouth. "What are you?"

* * *

 _I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know if you did. :) The next chapter is partially written so hopefully it will be up in the next week or so!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Well, here you go. Chapter Two. I'm writing this in my free time, so I will try to update as quickly as I can. Also, I do not have an intense knowledge of the MCU, so it's possible I will get details wrong some times. So bear with me!_

 _Hopefully you enjoy this chapter!_

* * *

"She's not an Inhuman, I can tell you that for sure."

They were standing in a dimly lit exam room in an underground SHIELD headquarters across the city from the industrial park where they had encountered the girl. Dust sheets covered several of the items of furniture in the room, and only half of the fluorescent lights waned light across the tile floor. Steve had informed Bucky earlier, as a service elevator clanked and groaned in its efforts to lower them into the belly of the facility, that it hadn't been operational for nearly eight years. Which had then made Bucky concerned at the integrity of the elevator. Apparently, they were only waking it now in an effort to discover more about this wild card before they packed her on a plane and flew her overseas back to the Avenger's compound for a full threat assessment.

"How do you know that?" Daisy asked, rolling a shoulder, trying to loosen what must be sore muscles.

"Well," Bucky's eyes flicked back to the girl in the white lab coat—He thought she had introduced herself as Jemma?— as she adjusted the clipboard propped against her hip and flipped through the top few pages of messily scrawled notes. "Her blood work is nothing like yours or Yo-Yo's. I even cross referenced Liam's blood work" —a careful glance to Daisy, who stiffened— "and nothing. No similarities beyond your average human traits."

"But we watched her jump from a third story building," Natasha said from where she leaned against a workbench, arms crossed. A wicked bruise was forming at her temple where the girl in question had rammed the butt of Natasha's baton. "We all saw it. People, normal people, just don't do that."

"Right," Jemma said, pointing a finger at the spy.

"So she's a super soldier?" Steve asked, thumbs hooked in the belt of his uniform. "That would fall in line with the Hydra leads we followed here to begin with. Hydra agents have come out of hiding to search for something, maybe someone, here. It could be her."

Jemma's pointed finger swung to the Captain. "No."

"She's had no kind of enhancement serum?"

"Not from what I can tell. See, normally when I look at the blood work from someone who has been injected with any kind of serum, like in the case of you, Captain Rogers, or Sergeant Barnes, there's still some remnants on a cellular level of who you were before the change. Honestly, her blood work is like nothing I have ever seen before."

Steve shifted, crossing his arms over his chest, almost as though the mention of him still in part being that scrawny kid from Brooklyn made him uncomfortable.

"So what you're saying," May injected, her fingers lightly touching the bandages across the bridge of her nose, bruises already pooling beneath her eyes, "is that that girl has had no alterations to her body."

"Well…" Jemma took a few steps to her left and switched on a light board that hung on the wall. "The technology here is a little bit farther behind than on the Bus. Once Coulson and the others arrive to pick us up, I'll be better able to scan and study her body. Until then, I have these."

'These' were x-rays. Scans of her torso, a wrist, what looked to be a hip, maybe?

"Are those her...bones?" Daisy asked, stepping closer, her chin length waves bobbing as she ducked her head slightly to inspect the films. She tranced a finger over a long, starkly white shape.

"Yep," Jemma said, the "p" popping lightly. "Anyone happen to know why something like this would show so solidly on an x-ray?"

"It's metal," Bucky found himself saying.

Jemma pointed at him, "Exactly. It's because of the density of metal that is shows up so white in an x-ray. But is that possible? Is it possible for someone to have a metal skeleton? And to weight maybe only a little more than an average girl her size?"

Daisy cocked her head, a brow raised, hand planted firmly on her hip. "Are you going to stand in a room with two super soldiers, a girl who can cause vibrations with her hands and—" Daisy jerked a thumb at May, "a women who was replaced with an LMD for like a month."

Bucky's eyes went to Steve, feeling the confusion shaping his features, but Steve only stared quietly back with an expression that said, Hey, don't look at me.

"And there. Do you see these here?" She pointed to several strands of something as bright white as the bones but they branched like veins throughout the body. "I'm not sure what they are. There is what looks like a control panel at the base of her neck, but its damaged. I can't plug in to it. It looks like some kind of, like, hardwired nervous system, almost."

"So she's a cyborg?" Natasha asked, her eyes inspecting the x-rays.

"Or an LMD?" Daisy asked, before glancing at the pair of confused expressions and explaining to the super soldiers, "Life Model Decoys. A cybernetic copy of a human being."  
"But she's not a cyborg. There are no cybernetic alterations aside from that strange wiring,"Jemma said, thumb pressed to her lip as she thought. "The LMD's were synthetic material made to look organic. This girl has DNA, organs, everything."

Behind them came the clan of metal, the clink of small instruments scattering across the floor. It was like release of a spring. Everyone in the room around Bucky sprang into action. A yell echoed down the hall. But Bucky couldn't move. Cold crept into his limbs, spreading through his chest. Over and over the sound of the scattering instruments echoed through his head. _He's been out of cryo too long. Wipe him. Start over._

 _Bucky?_

He dragged in a long, shuddering breath.

 _The man on the bridge. I knew him…_

"Buck?"

Everything swayed and rearranged itself until he was standing in the dim room once again. Bucky blinked. Steve stood in the doorway, hand gripping the threshold, looking at him. Bucky felt the back of his neck flush, anxiety working to unsettle him. How many times had he said his name?

Bucky reached down and unholstered the gun at his thigh, ignoring the ever so slight tremor in his fingers. Steve's head turned as more shouts rose down the hall.

"Let's go," Bucky said, forcing his voice level.

Steve gave a sharp nod then propelled himself from the doorway and down the hall. He pulled the shield from his back as they approached the doorway to the lab. Steve stopped just short of it, before glancing back at Bucky, who nodded in response, gun raised and ready.

There was the screaming sound of metal bending and fracturing, an explosion of yells, a short scream, but when Steve and Bucky swung into the room, everything had gone utterly still.

At the center of the small lab room was a gurney, atop which was the girl from the rooftop. Awake. And pissed. Which shocked Bucky. Not the anger, that was expected after being shot in the chest by a sniper rifle, but that she was awake. She was supposed to be sedated. They had given her enough sedation to keep her down for a least another few hours.

Steel shackles had been used to confine her to the table. Three of the four had been ripped open. The skin of the girl's wrist was badly torn and bruised, bleeding on the immaculate white coat of the lab tech she had pinned awkwardly to her chest over the gurney. Bucky raised his gun at the sight of the scalpel in the girl's hand. She instantly sighted the movement and tightened her grip on the lab tech, who whimpered, bringing the tip of the scalpel closer to her neck. Bucky could hear the rush of footsteps in the hall behind him.

"Nobody moves," the girl snarled. "Or we find out exactly how long it takes an arterial severance to bleed out."

Tears welled in the tech's eyes, her body trembling. The girl looked drastically different from the cool, collected threat on the rooftop. Now she looked pale and drawn. Exhausted and...terrified.

"Eris?"

That ruffled the girl. Clearly she had not expected anyone to know that name. All eyes turned to Bucky and he tensed for a long moment before he realized they weren't looking at him, but at the doorway just beyond him.

Behind him stood three men. On the left, a massive dark skinned man, on the right a slim, pale skinned guy who looked far more disturbed by the goings-ons in the lab than the rest of his trio. And at the center was a man Bucky had never met, but had seen in several photographs.

Agent Phil Coulson.

And to put even further the past few events into uncanny, the girl looked straight at Coulson, surprise written clearly on her face, and asked, "Phil?"

* * *

The girl, Eris, slid gingerly from the gurney. Her ankles and wrist had stopped bleeding, but clearly they were tender. All of the techs had been removed from the room until all the remained were Steve and Coulson's teams, who stood in a tense circle around the perimeter of the room. This girl wasn't trustworthy, not after what happened on the rooftop, but Coulson was strangely at ease with her, leaving the rest of them in uneasy uncertainty.

Eris turned her back to where Bucky stood as she watched Jemma prep her supplies to stitch shut the wound inflicted by Bucky's blade, which still bled sluggishly. This allowed Bucky a generous view of the hard landscape of muscles across the girl's shoulders and down her back, revealed by the SHIELD issued sports bra she must have been changed into during Jemma's initial examination.

Every movement she made bunched and flexed the swell of muscles beneath her skin. It was easy to see how she could keep speed with super soldiers with a length of legs built like that. While she still held some narrowness at her waist and a generous curve at her hips, there was little softness to her. Natasha could bring down several armed thugs, but she still maintained a deceiving softness over her strength. But there was nothing deceiving about the strength of this girl. It was a quality, Bucky found, that he did not mind in a woman.

Bucky glanced away to find Steve was watching him. He tried not to be embarrassed or ashamed under the scrutiny of his friend's gaze despite the heat of it burning in his chest. What did it matter if he appreciated the shape of a woman? He had seen Steve swing appreciative glances at women on several occasions. This though, Bucky did not do. He did not come to notice people, let alone women. Not when he had just managed to pull himself onto steady ground. And this woman worst of all. She who brought down three SHIELD agents. She who went toe to toe with Captain America, his shield in her hands. Who stopped the metal arm of the Winter Soldier.

This would not do.

"It's just a numbing agent."

Bucky looked back to see Jemma holding out a syringe to a very uneasy looking Eris. "That way you won't feel the stitches. There will be a slight pinch of the needle and that's it."

Eris looked away as Jemma brought the needle and syringe to her skin.

"The last time I saw you," Coulson said from where he leaned back against a workbench, arms crossed over chest, chin resting on a fist, "You had been out of the tank—what—a year?"

Eris nodded, watching Jemma clean the torn skin at her wrist as she allowed the injection time to numb the skin around the wound. "Yes. Carlton had just fled his brother's program, taking me with him. I had been the only reason SHIELD even considered his offer."

Coulson nodded slowly, eyes unfocused as a memory played through his mind. "You, along with his considerable knowledge, in exchange for a clean start. When I came for you, though, he told me you weren't ready."

A soft smile pulled at her lips. "I wasn't ever part of the deal. Not really. He knew that without the offer of me, of what I am and what he could create after me, SHIELD would just as soon let him rot in prison. So he lied about being willing to give me up."  
"Yeah," Coulson laughed. "I got that feeling real quick, with the way he fussed over you."

Eris looked up at Coulson, gaze cool and serious. "He trusted you though. After you left that day, he told me that if something ever happened to him, I should go to you. He trusted you. Not SHIELD."

"I suppose he would know. Considering the whole 'Hydra is SHIELD' debacle."

"Wait, hold on just a second," The man who had introduced himself as Fitz said, taking a few steps closer to her. He held Jemma's clipboard in his hand. "What exactly are you?"

Eris's eyes remained on Coulson, a silent consultation of his opinion. He swung open a hand in an invitation to speak. She turned her head, resting her chin on her shoulder and closing her eyes. It was surprisingly timid gesture. Bucky imaged she could be a great many things, but timid didn't feel like it should be one of them.

"I, uh—" She started, then stopped. A full stop. The kind of stop that requires you to take a breath and regroup. It was almost as though she was trying to decide how exactly she would explain this thing she was about to reveal to them.

"I, uh, I was created. Not born."

Her words were met with silence.

Eris took another breath, letting it out slowly, like a smoker's exhale. "The tank Phil mentioned earlier. It was an incubation tank."

Still, no one spoke. No one moved. It was like they stood on the edge of understanding. They could see the shape of it, and yet could not comprehend what it was. Then suddenly, Jemma straightened, the roll of gauze dropping from her hand. Bucky watched it unravel across the floor.

Fitz took another step closer, head tilted slightly as though it would allow him to understand her better. There was indeed a tint of comprehension in his voice when he spoke. "He built you, didn't he?"

"No," Jemma said, staring at her with a strange wonderment in her eyes. "He created you. Down to the molecular level. That's why your blood work makes no sense. He literally wrote your DNA. You are a melting pot of specifically chosen traits. The incubation tank must have been something like the cradle Ultron used to create the Vision. He could have cast a skeleton then built a body to his own exact specifications. Why use a serum on an unpredictable host to create a super soldier when you could literally build your own?"

Fitz reached out, touching Jemma like she grounded him. "Who—who created you?"

Eris looked to Coulson, again, unsure. "Carlton DeRossi."

"Wait," Jemma said, holding up her hands, needle and thread pinched between her fingers. DeRossi? As in the DeRossi brothers?"

Bucky stiffened. Across the room, the third man who had appeared with Coulson and Fitz, Mac, threw up a hand. "Does anyone understand what's happening here? Aside from the ones with the PhD's?"

"Who are the DeRossi brothers?" Steve asked.

Bucky didn't need to ask. He knew that name. No amount of electro shock torture could fracture the pathway to that memory.

"The DeRossi brothers are legendary in their field." Jemma explained, barely managing to say the words before they tumbled out. "They worked in Hyrdra R&D. I glimpsed their lab once during my time undercover. I knew they worked in genetic coding, but I never thought...I never imagined."

"Yeah," Eris said lamely, clearly unsure how to respond to that, as she tugged at the tail of gauze that had unraveled across the floor. "Yeah. And there is a lot you can do with a person like me. Carlton, uh, didn't want that for me. So he ran. I think I was a lot more than he expected me to be when I woke up. A lot more...human. He went into full dad mode." She gave a slow rueful smile. "Which I suppose isn't such a bad thing when there aren't exactly spokesmen for genetically engineered human beings. I was only in Hydra's program for about a year before Carlton pulled me out."

"The only thing I don't understand is the panel at the base of your neck, right at the start of your spine. That is electronic?"

"Yes," Eris slowly began to reroll the gauze, tediously keeping its edges neatly aligned. "It's some kind of hard wired nervous system. It was supposed to be used to download large sums of information all at once and allow me to process it in seconds. It's like changing over from dial up to broadband. It helps me process sensory information faster, to respond quicker. I can survive without it, but I sure don't mind that it's there."

"But it looks broken?"

Eris reached up beneath the dark ponytail at the base of her neck, touching something with her fingers before drawing them back. "The programing itself is undamaged. I just broke the port. It turns out that kind of system does have one major flaw." Eris swallowed, looking down at her hands. She flexed her fingers lightly. "So I ensured it never happened again. But if the right person came along, if they were able to knock me out long enough, then they could fix it."

Eris looked at Jemma then, and the other girl's eyes widened. "I'm sorry about your tech, but I freaked out. This is the kind of thing that Carlton warned me about for years, but I've never been caught before. So I just assumed the worst. And I am sorry. If I had known you were with Phil, everything would have gone differently. I wasn't expecting to wake up and still be me."

Bucky drew in a long breath. He could relate that. The fear. The overwhelming panic.

"But what are you doing here?" Steve asked. "In this city."

Eris's dark gaze swung to him. "I have been tailing a group of Hydra scientists for a few months. I'm looking for someone in particular, so I haven't moved on them yet. I had hoped he might stop in for a visit."

"I thought Hydra was essentially wiped out after the death of von Strucker?" Bucky asked.

"Parts of Hydra still remain," Eris explained. "The militant side of Hydra is basically gone, yes, but the scientists remain. And that is who I am after."

"So that was you?" Daisy asked suddenly.

"What?" Eris looked to her, brows raised in question.

"The graffiti in the streets? The girl with the scythe. Anytime we asked around about the possibility of someone enhanced in the city, all the stories came back to you, didn't they? The Reaper." Daisy looked at May as though the sight of her would help draw the words from her memory. "'The girl who has come to claim the souls of the men who terrorize this city?'"

Eris laughed softly. "The scientists are afraid after the fall of Hydra. There is no one left to protect them. So they came here, to an old Hydra laboratory, and they hired thugs to protect since they cannot protect themselves. And those thugs run this city like a gang. I couldn't sit back and do nothing just because they aren't who I'm after. Not with what I can do. It seemed like a waste. The city is poor. They drag in a kids who are desperate and hard up for money to do their dirty work. They get them into trouble. I tried to get some of them out."

"Well, then we are going to have to do something about that," Steve said, as he leaned back, crossing his arms. "When we pull you out of here there will be no one here to—"

"No. You not taking me anywhere. They are looking for me, and they won't stop until they have me. If you don't let me go then you are putting everyone in danger," Eris said, taking a step closer to him. She drew herself to her full height, squaring her shoulders in an attempt to intimidate him. Maybe if it was another man, Bucky thought, it would have. "Including those techs out there." She stabbed a finger toward the door. "Who clearly have no combat training. You are going to get them killed. It would be best to stitch me up and send me on my way. I can draw them off."

"Why are they looking for you?" Coulson asked.

"Damian DeRossi feels that I belong to him. With his brother dead, he sees no reason to believe otherwise. He wants his all his hard work and research back."

"Carlton is dead?" Couslon asked.

Eris's hard expression fractured with lines of pain. Clearly, Bucky thought, she had cared for her creator.

Steve pulled the conversation back in the direction they had been headed before. "Then the safest place for you right now is here. With us. They won't touch you here. Not with all of us around."

"I can take care of myself." She smirked at him.

He ignored this. "That may be, but if you are really as valuable as you claim, then we can't take any chances that could allow them to get their hands on you."

The sharpness in Eris's smile faltered. "I'm more than just a thing to be had. I may have been created, but I have a mind of my own. I can make these decisions for myself."

"The thing is," Natasha said, moving to stand beside Steve, "Is that we have no reason to trust a word that you are saying."

"Phil can tell you—"

"Coulson doesn't know the whole story. Every good lie is based in a grain of truth.

"I thought if I told you the truth—"

"We know very little about you," Coulson said calmly, trying to diffuse the rising tension. " _I_ know very little about you. But you should also consider the fact that if you go back with them, if you give them a real reason to trust you, they might actually come to aide you in your vendetta. How long have you been hunting Hydra scientists?"

Eris glared at Coulson, looking betrayed. "Three years."

"So you have three years of intelligence that you can share with them. They are _the_ Avengers. They have infinite resources. If you comply with our wishes, remain on their good side, maybe they will actually help you out."

"But how long will it take you guys to trust me? A few months? A year? Hyrda may not be active anymore but there are several high ranking scientists out there. People will pay a lot of money for what they are able to do," Eris argued.

"We haven't even had a chance to discuss any of this among ourselves," Steve said. "We will need to decide exactly how we want to proceed."

"You should 'proceed' by letting me go," Eris said. "The only reason they haven't caught up to me yet is because I keep moving. They may not be Hydra soldiers anymore, but they have the weaponry of Hyrda scientists to aide them. They use it to track me. When they come, you will have to be careful."

"If they come," Steve said.

"Fine, fine." Eris said, throwing her hands up. "But don't say I didn't warn you."


End file.
